Electing a pro-cryptocurrency president was more than most investors ever thought possible. Almost three months after the election, however, the initial euphoria is fading and turning to alarm for those who worry that President Trump’s own moves into crypto could be sowing the seeds of the next crypto winter. Just last month, Trump dropped the “only official Trump meme coin.” According to Chainalysis, nearly half of those who bought the token – or the Melania meme coin released the next day – were likely new investors who created their first crypto wallets the same day. But as much as investors look forward to a bull market capital injection, the industry is also trying to mature and distance itself from its online casino reputation, making allocation of new capital to projects with long-term utility and value all the more vital. Otherwise, today’s meme coin mania may well result in losses, discourage new crypto investors and hold back more valuable companies and developments. “It’s a money grab,” said Tyrone Ross, founder and president of registered investment advisor 401 Financial. “I wish a lot of this time and effort was spent on building out the technology and making it more accessible, but that gets farther and farther away with every announcement.” Coins questioned While companies like Coinbase Global and Robinhood Markets may benefit in the short run from the trading frenzy, JMP Citizens analyst Devin Ryan said meme coins aren’t an important part of a serious investable thesis. Instead, the opportunities come from coins’ ability to help people use blockchain technology in new ways, for example in staking , stablecoin utilization, integration with payments, web3 , the use of digital wallets and the tokenization of traditional financial assets. But those ambitions could get derailed. Only this week, Trump Media announced its latest push into crypto : TruthFi, a financial services division that will invest up to $250 million in exchange-traded funds, cryptocurrencies and other assets, and launch products and services, including its own investment vehicles, later this year. “People are going to be knocking each other over to get investment from them,” Ross said of TruthFi. “It’s just more products in the space, which is the last thing we need.” Since last summer, Trump’s companies have debuted two non-fungible token, or NFT , collections: Trump Digital Trading Cards on the Polygon blockchain and Trump Bitcoin Digital Trading Cards on the Bitcoin blockchain. A decentralized finance , or DeFi, platform called World Liberty Financial has also been launched on Ethereum. That company has since made major purchases of wrapped bitcoin (wBTC) , ether , Tron’s TRX , AAVE , Ethena’s ENA and Chainlink’s LINK . Trump’s influence is already affecting trading and investing trends. Last week, the Coinbase CEO posted on X that the company is having to rethink its listing process “given there are ~1 million tokens a week being created now, and growing.”
Sab. Feb 1st, 2025
